Hey guys! I hope you all enjoyed the holiday weekend! As I skipped an update yesterday, I went ahead and made this chapter a little longer to give you a nice little holiday treat! Hope you like it! Xoxo-NickyLynn
Tessa brought herself and Natasha out into the parking garage, walking over to the car Steve had been waiting in. When she opened the driver door and slid in, Steve's head whipped around to look at her before his attention was brought into the backseat and his eyebrows furrowed down when Natasha slid in as well. "What's she doing here?" he asked Tessa, suddenly on alert.
"She is on our side." Tessa told him.
"She is a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent." Steve shot back at her.
"She is right here." Natasha said then, leaning in between the two seats.
"We can trust her Steve." Tessa told him, looking over at him.
"And why would we do that? She's a professional liar Rose!" Steve shouted, looking back at Natasha who just stared back with a raised brow.
"Look, if she was going to turn us over to S.H.I.E.L.D., she would have done it by now." She reasoned with him. "And besides, she knows who killed Fury."
Steve looked back at Natasha at that with surprise. "Who?" he asked her.
"An assassin known as the Winter Soldier. He's lethal and impossible to trace. I brushed paths with him five years ago." Natasha told him. "Same style. Same ballistics."
"So, who does he work for? Who sent him after Fury? And why?" Steve asked.
"We don't know." Tessa said with a shake of her head. "But I bet at least one of those answers will be on this." She said, holding up the flash drive.
"Okay, so let's get to the nearest computer and figure out what's on there." Steve said, looking back over to Tessa.
"It's not that simple." She told him, shaking her head. "If this thing really holds S.H.I.E.L.D. secrets, they will no doubt have a homing system built into it. As soon as it's fired up, they'll know right where to find us." She told him.
"There's a mall a few miles north of here." Natasha said then, pulling both their attention into the backseat to her. "A lot of people. A public space. It will give us an edge to keep off their radar. If we play our cards right, we can blend right into the crowd and slip in and out without being made."
Tessa tipped her head as she thought over the idea. "That could work."
So, with no better alternative, Tessa started the car and pulled back out of the garage and followed Natasha's directions to the mall. As they all walked into the large building, Tessa pulled the hood of her sweater back around her head as Natasha did the same and Steve tugged on a baseball cap Natasha had snagged for him. As Tessa looked over at Steve, her lips pulled down in a the corner.
"What?" Steve asked, noticing her staring.
"You're still too….you." she told him, motioning over at his face. If anyone was going to make them, it would be him, seeing as his face had been plastered all over merchandise for the last few decades. As they passed by a booth full of sun and reading glasses, Tessa drew one of the clear-lensed pairs into her hand with her powers, before handing them to him. Steve let out a sigh, bothered by all the stealing they had been doing, but took the glasses from her anyways before sliding them onto his face. "Much better." Tessa commented by a nod. "Very Clark Kent."
"Am I supposed to know what that means?" Steve asked her in confusion.
"It means we have some serious brushing up to do on your pop culture knowledge." She shot back to him as she swept her eyes around the busy mall, trying to keep her eye on things while also trying not to act too suspicious.
"Yeah, maybe we should curb that for a time that we're not on the run from the U.S. government." Natasha said to them, her eyes surveying the area as well. She caught sight of the computer store they were looking for and nodded her head in its direction. "It's over there." She told Steve and Tessa, redirecting them towards it.
"Listen, if we get made, I'll hold them off while you guys make a run for it." Tessa told them as they passed by a large fountain in the center of the open area, her eyes constantly sweeping for possible S.H.I.E.L.D. agents.
"First rule of being on the run is don't run…walk." Natasha said back to her.
"Well, if I run in these shoes, they're gonna fall off." Steve said.
"Well, I'm sorry I didn't really have time to have you sit down and try on all the shoes in the store." Tessa scoffed back at him, accidently having gotten a pair of shoes two sizes too big for Steve while she had quickly snatched them up some clothes. "Just be thankful your pants aren't falling down on you." She told them as they walked into the tech store.
They made their way over to the laptops and Tessa handed the drive over to Natasha. "I'll keep an eye out." She told them as she handed the device over. She turned her attention back to the mall around them as Natasha booted up the computer. "How long do you think we have until they're able to trace us down?" she asked over her shoulder.
"About nine minutes from….now." she said as she stuck the drive into the port of the lab top. Tessa started the internal clock in her head, keeping her eyes on constant swivel. Tessa could hear Natasha click away on the keys behind her as she tried pulling open the files. "Fury was right about that ship." She said after a minute. "Somebody's trying to hide something. The drive's protected by some sort of A.I.. It keeps rewriting itself to counter my commands." Tessa turned and looked down at the screen as Natasha tried breaking through the firewalls, only to be blocked out at every turn.
"Can you override it?" Steve asked her.
"The person who wrote this is slightly smarter than me." She admitted. "Slightly. Do you think you can break through it?" Natasha asked, looking up at Tessa.
"If I had time maybe." Tessa said shaking her head. "In eight minutes? I doubt even Tony could manage that." She said with a shake of her head. "Can you at least trace down the source of the interference?" she asked.
"I can try." Natasha told her. "There's a program S.H.I.E.L.D. created to tack down hostile malware. It could work." She said, pulling up and running the program as she spoke. "So even if we can't read the file, at least we can find where it came from."
Tessa's eyes moved from the screen as it was narrowing down the trace over to a worker who was walking over to them. Tessa moved around Steve and Natasha to place herself in between the man and the computer they had currently hijacked.
The man came to a stop as she stepped up to him, smiling down at her. "Uh, hi. Can I help you guys with anything?" he asked, looking from her, over her shoulder to Steve and Natasha.
"Well, you sure can, sugar." Tessa told him, pulling on a southern drawl to her words. "See, I'm on vacation and my I lost my laptop at the airport and just really need one for work, see, and I was hoping you could show me a couple of these displays." She said, giving him a sweet smile, hoping to keep his focus on her and not on the computer behind her.
"Oh, uh…yeah, sure!" the man said, his cheeks turning a shade of pink. "What kind of processing capabilities are you looking for?"
"Oh, I don't know a thing about computers." She told him. "But you look like a man who knows his stuff." She said, placing her hand on his arm and leaning in towards him.
"W-well, I'm the assistant manager here. Been here four years, so I know my stuff." He told her, his cheeks turning a shade of pink.
"Ooh, assistant manager." She repeated, acting like that had impressed her. "Well….all this technology is just so complicated to me. I could use someone to teach me a thing or two about it all." She told him, batting her eyelashes up at him.
She heard Steve clearing his throat behind her and she took that as her cue that they had gotten what they needed. She drew back from the man suddenly, flashing him a smile as she took a step back. "Oh, you know, on second thought, I think I just remembered leaving it at the hotel." She told him as she spun around. "Thanks anyways!" she called back to him before hurrying out of the store behind Steve and Natasha.
"Really?" Natasha asked her with a smirk, finding her attempts at distraction humorous.
"Oh, shut up." Tessa said, rolling her eyes, knowing her flirtatious distracting was nothing compared to Natasha's. "Where to?" she asked them.
"Camp Lehigh." Steve told her as they walked back through the mall, everyone on extra high alert now that S.H.I.E.L.D. had been alerted to their presence there. His eyes caught sight of several agents and he pressed in closer to Tessa and Natasha. "We've got company. Standard tac team. Two behind, two across, and two coming straight at us."
Tessa caught sight of them shortly after as well and her muscles tensed. "If they spot us, I'll engage and distract them while you two hit the south escalator." She told them quietly.
"Steve, put your arm around me and pretend to laugh at something I said." Natasha said then, pulling Steve's eyes down to her in confusion.
"What?" he asked.
"Do it!" she bit out at him as the agents drew closer and were nearly upon them. Steve threw his arm around Natasha's shoulders and let out a fake chuckle and Tessa tucked her chin down to keep her face hidden as they walked past, and the agents didn't even bat an eye in their direction. Tessa let out the breath she had been holding as Steve whipped his head around, surprised it had been so easy to slip past them.
The three of them made their way over to the escalator that would bring them back down to the main level and they all stepped on, Tessa standing just behind Nat and Steve. As the moving stairs brought them down, Tessa caught sight of Agent Rumlow on the set of stairs coming up and smacked the back of her hand against Steve's shoulder. "Rumlow's coming up opposite." She warned, trying to keep her facing away from him.
Natasha spun around to face Steve as she locked sight on him as well. "Kiss me." She told him.
"What?" he asked again, perplexed by the sudden command.
"Public displays of affection make people very uncomfortable." She explained quickly.
"Yes, they do." Steve replied, feeling uncomfortable himself before Natasha pulled his head down to her and planted her lips against his own. Tessa used Steve and Natasha's interlocked bodies to hide herself behind as Rumlow passed by right across from them, watching him from the corner of her eye. He continued going up, looking around at the crowd around him, his eyes having grazed right over them.
Natasha pulled back from Steve when they were in the clear. "Still uncomfortable?" she asked him with a smirk before spinning around and moving further down the escalator.
"It's not exactly the word I would use." Steve responded, moving to follow her.
"I'm uncomfortable." Tessa scoffed out as she followed behind as well, having found the sight of Natasha practically sticking her tongue down her brother's throat disturbing to say the least.
Luckily, they didn't come across any other agents between the escalator and the exit. When they were a good bit of distance away from the main crowd, Tessa latched onto Steve and Natasha's arms and transported them the rest of the way out of there and into the parking garage. "We should probably swap out vehicles here." She said, walking over and pulling open the door to their stolen car, pulling out Steve's shield and uniform.
"That truck over there will work." Steve said, nodding over to the large blue Ford.
"Well, I did promise to let you drive the next getaway car." She told him as they made their way over to it. She pulled up on the locks of it with her powers and slid into the backseat, tossing the shield down on the floor as she did. Steve pulled open the driver's side while Natasha moved around to the passenger seat. Steve pulled out the wires protected under the dash and began hotwiring the vehicle. He had it started a few minutes later and got them back on the road, heading back towards their home State.
"I don't get why the source would be coming from Camp Lehigh." Steve said once they made it far enough away to know they were not being followed. "I mean, out of all places…"
Tessa had been pulling the hoodie over her head and once it was off, she bunched it up and stuck it under the back of her head as she stretched out in the large backseat. "Camp Lehigh was used as a S.H.I.E.L.D. headquarters back when Howard and Peggy first started things." Tessa explained as she laid herself down. "It's the first headquarters actually."
"Really?" Steve asked, looking back at her reflection through the mirror.
"Yep. It's where Howard spent the majority of his time." Tessa told him, letting her eyes slip shut, as old memories surfaced with the thought. "I wouldn't be surprised if they still use it for storage base. Now, if you don't mind, I'm going to get some rest on the way over. Wake me when we get there….or, if S.H.I.E.L.D. finds us….whichever comes first." She said, adjusting herself until she found a comfortable position and let her mind drift away for a moment.
The ride was quiet for a while after that, and as Tessa slipped in a deep sleep, Natasha turned her head to face Steve. "Where did Captain America learn to steal a car?" she asked him, surprised he had been able to hotwire the truck so easily.
"Nazi Germany." He responded as he adjusted himself in the seat. "And we're borrowing." He corrected her, his eyes falling in her legs that were kicked up on the dashboard. "Take your feet off the dash."
Natasha gave him an amused look but complied. "Alright, I have a question." She told him as she pulled her legs down. "Which you do not have to answer, but I kind of feel like it you don't answer it though, you're kind of answering it, you know?"
"What?" Steve asked, trying to pull it out of her.
"Was that your first kiss since nineteen forty-five?" she asked him with a smirk.
"That bad, huh?" he responded with a sigh.
"I didn't say that." Natasha defended.
"Well, I kind of sounds like that's what you're saying." Steve shot back at her.
"No, I didn't. I just…wondered how much practice you've had." She told him, finding his obvious discomfort amusing.
"You don't need practice." Steve said with a sigh.
"Everybody needs practice." Nat said, rolling her eyes.
"It was not my first kiss since nineteen forty-five!" Steve told her, trying to get her to drop the subject. "I'm ninety-five, I'm not dead."
"Nobody special though?" she pressed.
Steve let out chuckle. "Believe it or not, it's rather hard to find someone with shared life experience." He told her.
The corner of Natasha's lips pulled up further as he unknowingly repeated the words Tessa had said when Natasha had inquired about her sex life. "God, I'm beginning to think that boring sex-lives are just a Rogers' family trait."
Steve's eyes went from Natasha, up to the rearview mirror where Tessa's sleeping face reflected back to him. "I'm not sure I want to be hearing about my sister's love life."
"Well, don't worry there isn't one." Natasha told him. "Your sister's worse than you. I'm not even sure she's even kissed anyone since the forties, let alone anything more. And she wasn't the one frozen in a chunk of ice." She said, turning and looking back at Tessa. Her amused smile dropped down as she watched her. "How is she doing, by the way? Since she's been back."
Steve looked from Natasha, back to the road, letting out a sigh. "What? Am I supposed to believe you're a nurturing friend all of a sudden? Where's all the concern been for the past two months?" he asked her, still finding himself upset that nobody seemed to want to check in on his sister, so he was left to watch her spiral alone.
"Tessa told me she needed space, so that's what I gave her." Natasha shot back at him. "Despite what you think I do consider Tessa my friend." She told him, crossing her arms, still finding a part of herself upset that Tessa hadn't trusted her from the beginning. "And besides, I shouldn't have to explain myself to you Steve. Me and Tessa have an understanding and she trusts me. Why can't you?" she asked him.
"Yes, well, Tessa has a history of placing her trust in the wrong people and she ends up hurt by it. I just don't want to see you hurt her too." He told her seriously.
"Well, don't worry, because for once we actually agree on something. I'm not some maniacal villain Steve, I'm her friend. And I have been worried." Natasha told him, just as serious.
Steve studied Natasha for a moment before his eyes slide over Tessa's still-sleeping form. "I think this Asgardian stuff has messed with her head too much." Steve finally said quietly. "And I think that she needs a win, you know. She's just always waiting for the next blow to come and it's wearing her down." He admitted to her.
Natasha looked back at Tessa. "I think Tessa's strong than you give her credit for." She told him.
"I think Tessa's done a remarkable job at convincing everybody she's stronger than she really is." He responded, having first hand seen just how bad Tessa would get when she thought nobody was looking.
With that, the truck fell into silence and that silence endured for the remainder of the drive. When they finally pulled up to the gates, Natasha turned and shook Tessa awake. She pushed herself up and rubbed her eyes as she looked out the windshield and found herself staring at the same camp where her and Steve's lives were altered forever. She let out a sigh as she shoved the rising memories down and pushed open the door. The three of them walked up to the locked gate, Steve holding onto his shield as he did. "This is it." He said, the area being all too familiar to him.
"You're sure this is where the signal was coming out of?" Tessa asked Natasha, looking around the abandoned camp with a raised eyebrow.
"The file came from these coordinates." Natasha said, looking down at the GPS.
"So did I." Steve said, coming to a stop in front of the gate.
"Well let's figure out what S.H.I.E.L.D.'s been hiding here, shall we?" Tessa said, reaching forward and sending a blast at the padlock around the gate, sending it flying open as the metal snapped under the force.
They all walked into the camp as the sun was beginning to set behind them. Tessa and Steve looked around as they were transported back in time, and it was unsettling how much it had not changed through the years.
"It's weird being back here." Tessa commented, looking over to Steve.
"You're telling me." Steve told her in agreement.
"You said you were made here?" Natasha asked Steve with furrowed brows.
"This is where we studied the potential candidates for Erskine's serum." Tessa explained.
"Has it changed much?" Natasha asked in curiosity, her eyes looking around the area for anything out of the ordinary.
"A little." Steve said, looking up as he was barraged with memories.
"Well, I'm not finding anything." Natasha said with a sigh, looking down at the device in her hands. "No heat signatures, zero waves, not even radio. Do you think whoever created the file used a router to throw people off?" she asked, looking over at Tessa.
"I mean, that's a possibility, but I know this was an operating S.H.I.E.L.D. base. There's got to be something more hidden here. Maybe it's buried underground." She said, looking around. "We've just got to find the entrance."
Steve's eyes roamed the area, trying to find something that could have been used as a hidden entrance and he paused when he came across a structure that had definitely not been there last time he was. Tessa noticed him looking at something with a pensive look on his face and she followed his line of sight to an ammunition bunker. "What?" she asked him, wondering what was throwing my off about it.
"Army regulations forbid storing munitions within five hundred yards of the barracks." He said, motioning over to the cabin where the soldiers would have been housed. Tessa looked between the two structures with a lifted brow.
"Well, I'd call that out of the ordinary then." She agreed, moving towards the storage shed. She let out another small blast at the lock as she walked up to it and pushed the door open without having to touch it. She led them into the room that was definitely not a storage shed, walking down a set of dark steps. Her eyes strained against the darkness as she stepped into a large room. She noticed the outline of a power switch and flipped it up with her powers. The lights overhead flickered into life, illuminating the stretched out area where the original S.H.I.E.L.D. logo had been built into the wall. "This looks more like it." She said, looking around the area, trying to picture Howard and Peggy moving about the barren place.
They walked through the empty space, moving towards a door at the back of the room. Steve pushed the creaky door open, and they walked into what looked like a room where files were once kept. As Tessa's eyes were sweeping the area, she paused as a familiar set of faces caught her attention. She walked over to the hanging photographs of a young Howard Stark and Peggy Carter and let out a sigh as she crossed her arm.
"That's Tony's dad." Natasha said, noticing what had drawn Tessa's focus.
"Howard." Tessa told her, finding the young faces filling her with memories she'd rather avoid.
"Who's the girl?" she asked, motioning her chin over to the photograph of Peggy.
"Agent Carter." Tessa told her, a small smile lifting Tessa's mouth as she thought of the feisty brit. She noticed Steve walking away with a pained face and her smile dropped. Of course Peggy had been a very delicate subject for Steve. She let out a sigh as she followed behind him. He had paused in front of one of the shelving units, holding up his hand as he felt a breeze coming out from behind it. He looked around the whole wall, noticing the square cracks that suspiciously looked like a doorway.
"If you're already working in secret office," Steve said, reaching forward and pulling on the shelf, causing it to let out a loud screech in protest as he pulled it over, revealing a corridor behind it that lead to an elevator door. "Then why do you have to hide the elevator?" he finished, looking over at Tess with a raised brow.
"Let's find out." She responded, stepping into the corridor, followed by Steve and Natasha. They walked up to the door, looking down at the keypad as they came to a stop in front of it.
"I've got it." Natasha called out as she pulled out the device she had in her pocket and held it up to the button pad. The device scanned the buttons, picking up on the traces of skin cells left on the access code numbers. It generated the code for them, and Natasha entered it into the dial. The system beeped as it accepted the code and the doors slid open.
They loaded up into the shaft and Tessa pushed the only button that was displayed on the inside of the lift. The doors slid shut again and the elevator began bringing them down to whatever S.H.I.E.L.D. had been trying so hard to hide. When the doors opened back up, they were met with sheer darkness, the only light coming from it were from the few glowing buttons around the dark room. Tessa took a hesitant step out, trying to make out anything in the darkness.
They all walked further into the room, walking out towards the glowing buttons that as they drew closer resembled a huge control panel. They stepped up into a circular area of screens and buttons and as they did, the lights above them flickered on.
They looked around at the screens and old memory systems that were covered in a thick layer of dust in confusion. "This can't be the data point." Natasha said, looking around in disbelief. "This technology is ancient."
Tessa looked around, thinking the same thing. Something caught her eye then. Something that was not ancient. Something that very much did not belong amongst everything else. Something that had not a speck of dust on it. "This isn't." she said back to Natasha, motioning down towards the black USB drive. Natasha walked over to it as Tessa pulled the flash drive from her pocket. Everyone watched as she pushed the device into the port and suddenly the whole area powered into life as the computer system woke up and began processing.
They all looked around in confusion before an automated voice came through the speakers in front of them and they looked up to find the computer asking if they wanted to initiate the system in bold green letters. Tessa and Natasha exchanged a look before Natasha stepped up the keyboard and typed out Y-E-S. "Shall we play a game?" she said in a low voice, looking over at Tessa with a smirk. Tessa let out a snort as she shoved on Nat's shoulder in humor.
"Let's not go starting World War Three, shall we?" Tessa told her in response.
Steve was looking in between the two women in confusion, having no idea what they were talking about. Tessa noticed him trying to process the reference. "Seriously Steve, we have got to broaden your knowledge on pop culture." Tessa said rolling her eyes. "Add it to your list. It's a movie-" she began to explain before a voice filled the air and Tessa froze.
"Rogers, Steven." The German accented voice said. "Born nineteen eighteen." Tessa's heart stopped because she knew that voice. That voice had haunted some of her worst nightmares. "Romanoff, Natalia Alianovna. Born nineteen eight-four." Tessa slowly turned and her eyes landed on the screen that now had some sort of green face displayed from its glass.
"It's some kind of recording." Natasha said, looking at the strange green face on the screen.
"It's not a recording." Tessa breathed out, her wide eyes locked onto the strange, yet familiar face. "That's Zola."
"Ah, right you are Nurse Rogers." Came Dr. Zola's voice. "I may not be the man I was when Captain America took me prisoner in nineteen forty-five, but I am." He told them as an image of Arnim Zola was pulled up and displayed before them. "So good to see you again Rose."
"You know this thing?" Natasha asked, looking over at Tessa in question.
"I did." She responded, having thought Arnim Zola was nothing but a distant memory. "Zola was a German scientist who had been working with the Red Skull. He's the one who I was forced to work with to recreate the serum. He's helped turn my into this monster." She bit out, suddenly finding herself filled with a long-forgotten anger. "He's supposed to have been dead for years."
"First correction." Arnim's voice called out. "I am Swiss. Second…look around you." His voice whispered out eerily. "I have never been more alive.
Tessa's eyes looked around at the massive amount pf processing servers and it clicked into place for her, yet she found it unbelievable. "You're the A.I." she breathed out in realization. "How?"
"In nineteen seventy-two I received a terminal diagnosis. Science could not save my body. My mind, however, that was worth saving. On two hundred thousand feet of databanks. You are standing in my brain." He explained for to them.
"Why would S.H.I.E.L.D. be stupid enough to trust you? Why would they build this and keep it hidden under lock and key? Why would Howard keep this from me?" she said, her eyes darting back and forth in thought.
"It was Operation Paperclip." Natasha said, causing Tessa to look over at her. "After World War Two, S.H.I.E.L.D. recruited German scientists with strategic value." She revealed, having been told that by Fury before.
"They thought I could help their cause." Zola continued. "I also helped my own."
"Hydra fell with the Red Skull." Steve said, not liking where this was leading them.
"Cut off one head, two more shall take its place!" Zolan said, displaying the all too familiar octopus.
"Prove it." Steve challenge.
"Accessing archives." Zola said before a screen pulled up an image of Schmidt. "Hydra was founded on the belief that humanity could not be trusted with its own freedom. What we did not realize was that if you try to take that freedom, they resist." He told them as pictures of the war flicked by.
"Right, because who could have guessed that?" Tessa scoffed.
"The war taught us much. Humanity needs to surrender its freedom willingly. After the war, S.H.I.E.L.D. was founded and I was recruited. The new Hydra grew like a beautiful parasite inside S.H.I.E.L.D. For seventy years, Hydra has been secretly feeding crisis….reaping war…and when history did not cooperate…history was changed." He said, the images being pulled up on his screen narrating his story with irrefutable documentation. A metal armed man was displayed on the screen and Tessa guessed that this was their ghost.
"That's impossible." Natasha said. "S.H.I.E.L.D. would have stopped you."
"Accidents will happen." Zola said then, images of Howard's death flashing before them. Tessa felt her heart lurch at that. She had always had a feeling Hydra was behind Howard's death, but hearing him blatantly admit to it sent her insides exploding with the familiar burning of rage. "Hydra created a world so chaotic that humanity is finally ready to sacrifice its freedom to gain its security. Once a purification process is complete, Hydra's new world order will arise." He said, the images of satellites and weapons sweeping over the screen.
"Do you really think we're going to let you get away with subduing the world under Hydra control?" Tessa seethed out at him, angry she had not killed him herself when she had the chance years ago.
"We've already won." Zola decreed. "And all thanks to you. Your recreation of the serum was the monumental catalyst that sent Hydra down this path to domination. You, by far, are my greatest creation, Ms. Rogers."
Tessa's angered boiled over at that and she couldn't stop the blast that fired out from her palms, slamming into the display, sending it sparking out as the glass shattered. The screen next to them flickered into life and Zola's green face looked over at them from it now. "As I was saying…" he said.
"What's on this drive?!" Tessa yelled out to him, motioning over to the device.
"Project Insight requires….insight." he responded. "So, I wrote an algorithm."
"What kind of algorithm? What's it do?" Steve said, stepping up to the screen.
"The answer to your question is fascinating. Unfortunately, you shall be too dead to hear it." He told them sinisterly before the doors behind them begin closing by themselves. Steve whipped around and sent his shield flying out towards them, but the doors sealed shut before it could make it to them, and it bounced right off and flew back into his hand.
"Uh, guys. We've got a bogey." Natasha said, the device in her hand beeping in alarm. "Short range ballistic. Thirty seconds tops." She told them.
"Who fired it?" Steve asked her in alarm.
"S.H.I.E.L.D." She said in dread.
"I'm afraid I've been stalling." Zola said with a dark chuckle. "And I'm afraid you are out of time."
Tessa's wide eyes turned to Steve and Natasha as the beeping grew louder and panic filled her. She rushed over to them, but knew she wouldn't be able to get them away fast enough, so instead she brought her arm out around her, pushing all of her power around her like a shield. They were encased in a glowing blue orb just as the missile struck the bunker and flames exploded all around them. The explosion was powerful, and Tessa found herself letting out a roar as she pushed out everything she had inside her into the shield, knowing if it fell that the three of them would be consumed in the inferno surrounding them. The heat was intense, and Tessa could feel it burning her skin as she tried desperately to keep the flames at bay. Steve had crouched down at her feet, and was circled protectively around Natasha.
The ground around them rumbled as the building was torn apart from the blast and the fear of being burnt alive quickly was washed away by the fear of being crushed to death. Tessa struggled to keep her power flowing into the shield, but soon found her vision tunneling in with all the energy she was using. "I can't hold it anymore!" she yelled out, knowing she was running out of time. "I'm sorry!" she breathed out, looking down at Steve with tears in her eyes before darkness filled her vision. She fell to her knees as the shield around them faded away and they were left defenseless from the rubble falling around them.